


the fallen sons

by hiyoris_scarf



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types, Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood & Manga
Genre: 3 October 1911, FMA Day, Gen, POV First Person, POV Minor Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-02
Updated: 2016-10-02
Packaged: 2018-08-19 05:03:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 533
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8191235
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hiyoris_scarf/pseuds/hiyoris_scarf
Summary: drabble written for FMA Day 2016





	

I didn’t want any this for you. You have to know—my brilliant, courageous boys—that I never wanted this for you.

From now—from here, where I am, I see how it must have looked. I had always encouraged and supported you: of course I had. You were priceless, miniature copies of your father, down to your relentless drive toward alchemy—toward truth.

Except… _you_ I could keep all to myself. You would never run off, afraid of being too hideous for the world to tolerate your existence. You would care about my short, insignificant life far more than you would care about countries, or kings, or wars.

But I’ve already lost the thread of my story, little ones. I’ll start over.

I didn’t want you to have to see me lying there, as gray and as cold as rain. I tried to smile—even at the end—so that the body I left behind would be smiling too. I don’t think it worked. My mouth was crooked and stiff, and sometimes I think—even now—even here—that maybe _that’s_ why you did it.

You just wanted that mouth to be able to smile again.

I didn’t want your tiny, precious bodies to be torn open and scooped out as part of that merciless sacrifice. The gate spit you out again, broken and grieving—over a body that had never been what you had hoped to bring back.

I watched one of you tear off yet another part of yourself to make sure your little brother came back. I heard you say “take my heart—”

—and I wanted to scream, “No, no—take _mine_.”

I didn’t want you to struggle with your wounds for so long: one of you in the ruin of your physical body, and the other in a hollow, perfect prison without sun, without air.

I wish I could have breathed for you, my little one. I wish I could have given your brother back his childhood.

I didn’t want you to have to fight so hard, just to re-obtain something that should never have been lost. I didn’t want you to have to work, and burn, and bleed, all because of one mistake. I didn’t want your friends to witness your suffering.

I, of course, could only witness.

I saw how you reached up to heaven, and landed in hell.

And then—you clawed your way up again, through the fire and the mud. Because, my boys, you understood what you brought upon yourselves was just another challenge on your climb toward greatness.

You broke every rule, and rebuilt the world according to your own laws. You forged friendships that you carried as torches in the hungry darkness. Your strength, and your generosity, and your sheer, disastrous stubbornness drew allies to you like moths to a lamp.

And above all this, you lived. You lived _so_ _fiercely_.

You are not the fallen sons in this myth—but rather the angels who realize, halfway down, that they grew their own wings.

I didn’t want this for you, but I am so proud of what you have overcome.

I didn’t want this for you—but maybe I should have.


End file.
